Stewart Rhodes

WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS

Rhodes, who founded the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years for seditious conspiracy and was one of the fourteen people the January 20, 2025 proclamation named for a commutation rather than a pardon. Their sentences were cut to “time served as of January 20, 2025,” making them eligible for immediate release, but, unlike the pardoned defendants, their convictions stayed on their criminal records. Rhodes appeared on Capitol Hill on January 22, 2025, where he delivered a speech defending his actions. In May 2025 an outside advocate recommended that the Justice Department’s pardon attorney pursue full pardons for Rhodes and four others; the cited record reports no result. On April 14, 2026 the Justice Department asked a federal appeals court to throw out the convictions of twelve of the fourteen — all but Thomas Caldwell, who had been pardoned outright in March 2025, and Jeremy Bertino; the cited record does not say why Bertino was left out. On May 22, 2026 the government moved to dismiss the indictment against eight of the defendants, and in an order dated May 29, 2026 U.S. district judge Amit P. Mehta said the government had not given an adequate reason and gave it until June 5 to do so. The cited record ends there and does not say how that effort was resolved. No payment is documented in connection with the grant.